Food Editor

Hearst•Dallas, TX

9d•Onsite

About The Position

North Texas is one of the country's most exciting food scenes, and The Dallas Morning News is seeking an editor passionate about covering it. This is a highly read and engaged beat within our newsroom, with ongoing growth in digital stories, social video, and the popular Eat Drink D-FW podcast. We are launching a series of top restaurant guides and are looking for a leader to drive these initiatives. The ideal candidate is a strategic thinker who moves quickly, loves food culture beyond just the plate, and can inspire a team to spot great stories and understand audience engagement. This role requires a leader who can balance breaking news with in-depth enterprise storytelling, is fluent in analytics, understands audience behavior, and can foster collaboration across departments like Audience, Audiovisual, Product, and Marketing. A people-first approach to leadership, with a commitment to diverse hiring, sourcing, and coverage, is essential.

Requirements

A bachelor's degree in journalism or a related field.
At least five years of experience.
Exceptional news judgment, accuracy, and core journalism skills.
A flair for headlines and a sharp editorial eye.
A genuine passion for food culture.
Strong ability to edit breaking news and in-depth enterprise stories.
Fluency in audience analytics and the ability to translate data insights into newsgathering decisions.
Expertise in multi-platform digital content strategy across desktop, mobile, social, and emerging platforms.
Strong planning and organizational skills with keen attention to detail.
A collaborative, people-first approach to coaching and developing journalists.
An excellent communicator who thrives under deadline pressure and works well across diverse teams.
Creative, forward-thinking mindset aligned with growth goals.
Experience experimenting with Advanced AI to enhance journalism and reporting efforts.

Nice To Haves

Experience using AI tools like ChatGPT Enterprise for tasks such as generating headlines, SEO keywords, alert language, grammar cleanup, style application, clarity improvement, story versioning for different formats/platforms, monitoring public meetings, and AI-assisted data processing and summarization.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage a team of two food reporters, a restaurant critic, and a digital producer, setting priorities and providing coaching.
Oversee strategy for food coverage, including assigning and editing stories for digital and print, managing newsletters, and monitoring metrics.
Use analytics to inform decisions about story timing, placement, and audience engagement.
Coordinate with social media, audience, and photo teams to maximize coverage reach and impact.
Plan coverage strategies for major events, breaking news, and enterprise projects.
Assist with planning and coordinating video and audio projects, including the Eat Drink D-FW podcast.
Lead the next phase of the top restaurant dining guides series, developing it into a must-read franchise.
Manage all aspects of employee management, including recruitment, interviewing, selection, onboarding, and retention.
Conduct regular performance evaluations, provide feedback, and coaching.
Administer progressive discipline and counseling as needed.
Oversee scheduling, workload distribution, and delegation to ensure balanced team performance.